An Insider's Guide: BBC News 2013 Highlights Politics Europe

Europe's greatest achievements. You need to know all about it.

Welcome to the insider 's guide to the EU.

Previously I have showing around Brussels, the Belgian city where you

will find the three main institutions of the European Union.

That is the commission, the executive where they dream up new

legislation. There is a commissioner from each of the 28 member states

covering subjects from trade to transport, phones, to fish. Its work

is overseen 766 MEPs and the European Parliament just around the

corner. It is the only directly elected institution in the EU. In

between your phone the council, that is where things are agreed or not by

heads of government at the member states. Something that is often on

the agenda, a single market. One of the concept at the heart of the EU.

Let us explore the single market. The idea behind the single market is

that trade can happen across the EU with as few barriers as possible. It

is based on the freedoms of movement, goods, capital, and

services. Here are some of its ingredients. First of all there are

no import tariffs. Then there is harmonisation. It is accompanied by

mutual recognition, making member states accept each other's

recognitions and professional qualifications. And what about

implementation? Each has to write EU rules into their own laws. Some are

more enthusiastic than others. Free trade is such an important part of

the project that it is mentioned in the second line of the 1957 Treaty

of Rome that established what would become the EU. An important test

case involved this, a lecturer from France. In the 1970s Germany wanted

to imported, the law said he could not. In 1979 the European Court of

trust is said that something made in one area could be made available in

another. -- Court of Justice. It was not until the Thatcher era that

legislation was passed to establish a true single market which came into

existence in 1992. Now billions of goods trade within Europe each year.

They want to extend the single market into sectors it does not

normally reach like transport and telecommunications. Sceptics it does

not go down well. Another key idea is the free movement of people,

which is helped by an agreement. 400 million Europeans can travel around

the continent without a passport thanks to this agreement which

abolished internal borders between the 26 countries who are members. It

was signed in 1985 by five members of the EU. This village is in

Luxembourg, the German border is just over there and the French

border is just over there. It was signed on a boat in the middle of

the river. The villagers so proud that is even a museum dedicated the

agreement. It is full of things that have gone out of fashion on the

continent like border posts and customs officers hats. We have a lot

of people come in here and they always say that this is what we can

feel about Europe, it is something that makes life easier for us. This

is one of the reasons why most of them appreciate the agreement. It

all sounds so simple. This area is a puzzle. The UK and the Republic of

Ireland are not members. Bulgaria and Romania are not allowed to be

members. But Iceland and Switzerland, who are not in the EU,

but a part of this. Countries can withdraw for security reasons, as

France did when they were worried about illegal immigrants. Do not

tell Theresa May about the most popular exhibit, the printer own

passport machine. Almost as convincing as the real thing. --

print your own passport machine. There is also a database containing

the information of people of interest such as missing persons.

Britain is a member of that. Countries that want to sign up to

all of this and joined the EU have to go through the accession process.

How do you get into the EU? I have come to mini Europe in Brussels to

find out. A country has to fulfil some fundamental criteria. They were

written here, in Copenhagen, in the 1990s. A country has to have stable

institutions the rule of law, and a fully functioning market economy. If

a country broadly measures up it becomes a candidate, then it is put

under the magnifying glass during intense negotiations where the EU

tells it what reforms have to be made. Then there is an enormous

Treaty. All of this takes a long time. Just ask the ambassador for

Croatia. It started in 2000. That is when there was an opening to a new

perspective of Croatia. Our formal application was submitted in 2003.

The negotiations started in 2005 and ended in 2011. We entered the union

in 2013. It was 13 years of hard work and personal sacrifice. In our

case, 13 ended up being a lucky number. Inevitably, politics come

into it. EU officials wanted to delay the accession of Greece, but

they were overruled by the politicians. The expansion is to

eastern Europe was championed by Britain but others were not so

welcoming. The Capers membership was originally veto twice by the French.

While we are now potentially ambling towards the exit, there are plenty

who would love a spot in mini Europe like Albania. At the end of this

process we will see that we have reformed ourselves. We will see that

our industries and the other sectors of the economy will have and will be

better placed to benefit from the possibilities of a single market in

Europe. Is it true that Tony Blair is advising you? It is true he and

his team will be advising me government of Albania during this

period. We are glad to have their advice and support. Despite the star

power, the ambassador will not bet on when Albania gets a seat at the

table. Some people say that enlargement is the EU's no

successful foreign policy. The lure of membership encourages countries

to develop. Others fear that Europe is becoming the opposite of this

place, far too big. Let us find out about some EU

agencies. First of all, Europol. Welcome to the most secure building

in the Netherlands. The offices of Europol in the Hague. It is home to

800 officials to help police services in the member states. We

are not a European FBI. We do not have all claim those powers. We are

an intelligent sensor that can exchange intelligence very quickly

and give Leeds to crime agencies so they can track down and apprehend

for themselves criminals. Busting drug strings is a speciality. Hence

this replica meth lab. You can see we build up a typical amphetamine

allowed. That is the breaking bad stuff. Yes. It is a small-scale

machine that can produce a fuse out on tablets and now. This is a

typical indoor cannabis cultivation attempt. It is very common in the

Netherlands and western Europe. You can buy this for a few hundred euros

and start growing your cannabis. And every ten or 11 weeks you have a

harvest. This room is a Faraday 's cage. It means that no signals

penetrate. Inside the case, they scrub crooks hard drives and suck

data from their phones. This forensics expertise also good at

spotting fake euros. Generally, what goes wrong with counterfeit is, it

is that you have nothing to compare it with. If you put it next to

genuine notes and start looking for it, you will find differences. You

might even be able to determine that it is uncertain. In real life it is

not work like that. Here is whether it track networks of counterfeiters

who make knockoffs of everything. Every kind of product can be

counterfeited. Food can also be counterfeited. How does that work?

It is like a cross between the untouchables and an EU summit. Here

is where the politics come into it. Early this year the European

commission raise the idea that countries should be compelled to

share more information with Europol. An idea that did not go

down very well with the government in the UK. Britain says it would

harm national security will stop they said would be a disaster if

Britain quit the organisation. Overnight it would lose access to

unique intelligence databases on crime. You would lose access to

unique operational platforms to co-ordinate thousands of cases per

year. It would make it more difficult to fight crime in the UK

and less efficient. It would be more costly as well. Europol say an

analysis of 600 high profile cases show that half of them had links to

the UK. For foreign policy matters, there is

the external action service, the EU 's diplomatic corps. She has been

fated and slated since becoming the first ever EU foreign policy supremo

three years ago. Besides fixing international crises, Cathy Ashton

has been building be diplomatic corps, the external action service.

Around 2000 people are stationed in foreign countries, like here in

Switzerland. Richard Jones is Russell 's man here. First up, a

meeting of diplomat 's from the member states. There is not a name

for a group of ambassadors, but critics say it there is one too many

here. Why can -- why can't they just represent what the EU is? That is

what we used to do. The difficulty was that the president of the

council was only in place for six months, and there is only so much

what you can do for six months. Then it is over to the Swiss Parliament,

for a chat with MPs. This meeting is quite important because next year in

February Switzerland is going to hold a referendum on whether to

limit the number of people who will come over from the European Union,

which is a big deal for the EU. We respect Swiss sovereignty and the

International decision-making. On the other hand, this is an important

issue for the EU and an important part of our relationship. I see my

job here is to set up a fax as we see them -- the facts, and the

arguments that they would not hear of it did not have at delegation. If

that is the EU 's relations with one country, here is where they have

them but the whole world. This is the headquarters of the UN in

Geneva. Working the corridors, the Italian diplomat who heads the

mission here. Today, she is giving Europe's response to a not exactly

thrilling report about development. Every word agreed by EU members in

advance. I have the honour to speak on the behalf of the European Union

as member states. Britain regards its relations with other countries

pretty jealousy, and when I ask about us, she is pretty diplomatic.

Sometimes it is a bit difficult. I think, in the end, there is one

quality that the UK express here and I try to take advantage of that and

they make of that my own policy, which is being pragmatic. Do not

lose too much time in discussing what we can do or not. Let's just

see it where is the final objective and try to reach that in the way

that is possible and practical. Practicalities. Even the

cheerleaders for the external action service admit it has been plagued

with keeping troubles from admin issues to turf wars with other bits

of the EU. So what is it really like working for it? Do you go for lots

-- you go to lots of cocktail parties? Yes. And a lot of dinners.

My evenings very often are it is. But this is work. I read you are

meant to call an ambassador your Excellency. Do I have to call you?

When I hear that, I try to turn around and see where the other

diplomat is. Do you get a diplomatic passport and can jump the queue at

the airport? I had one before. You do not jump the queue at the

airport, it depends which airport. You get let off parking fines?

Absolutely not. I paid my last speeding fine yesterday. You have a

meeting to go to. Let's go. Ambassador is a pretty simple

sounding job title. But what about some more exotic, like a rapporteur?

In her 12th floor Brussels office, Gladys is doing what every MEP

thinks of, she is a rapporteur. What? Let me explain. Here at the HQ

of the European commission, they have written some new legislation

concerning clinical drugs trials. The draft law then comes here to the

European Parliament, where it is sent to the MEPs on the public

health committee. And that is where Lotus comes in. As a rapporteur, it

is her job to formulate the committee 's response to the

legislation. You are making sure you know about the subject and you meet

all the stakeholders involved, whether it be patients groups or

consumers groups, whoever has an interest in that particular report.

You'll meet with all of them and make sure that you hear all of their

views and then you have to decide with technical and legal support

where you want to report to go. It is a huge amount of extra work for

me and the people who work with me. A lot of extra work, but it is worth

it, because you can make a difference. You get paid any extra?

Absolutely not. Everybody in the European Parliament gets paid

exactly the same. It is not like Westminster, where you have

ministers on a higher salary. Everybody gets the same. After all

that work, but committee presents his report to the whole European

Parliament for a final vote. And here is one of the most famous

rapporteurs of all. A young Nick Clegg, who was the star of a ABC

documentary will stop more than a decade ago, he got a law on the

telecom sector passed in record time. There is intense competition

between the different political groups to secure roles like this.

Rapporteur ships are influential jobs. Jobs that do not have an

equivalent in the UK political system. On the 12th floor, she is

part minister, part committee selected chair, part political

fixer. And where could you go if you wanted

to find out even more about this stuff? Allow me to introduce you to

the College of Europe. Cobbles, dreaming spires, students

on bikes. It is Baruch, where you will find the EU 's very own

Oxbridge, the College of Europe. At two o'clock, it is this professors

lecture. At 4pm, it is a law class with this professor. Then more law

with a different professor, this time in French. This academic

hothouse is a private university, although a quarter of its funding

comes from Brussels. Former students tend to get very good careers in

deed. The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, studied here. It is

where he left his wife, who is now a top lawyer. The Danish Prime

Minister is an alumnus, and the EU ambassador to the UN, along with

countless other people in high places, which has prompted a

conspiracy theory that this place is a factory for federalist. I can

understand if sometimes the impression is created that there is

a mafia. But this is an unduly negative view, because there is a

lot of idealism of the students. They want to be part of the

solution, not the problem is, in Europe. Who are these bright young

things? A country with the biggest number of students here is France,

with 57. Closely followed by Italy. The right 25 from the UK, which is

slightly less than the number from Poland, and about the same as the

number from Turkey. Food, lodging and tuition costs 22,000 euros per

year, but many students are somewhat sub by their countries governments.

-- skippers are sponsored. So what is it like being a Brit here? He

able to look at the European issues from an international standpoint is

quite interesting. We have discussion classes where we talk

about methods and theories of European integration, and it is

interesting to hear how it looks from a Dutch point of view or a

French point of view or a Turkish point of view, not just have the

British point of view of the whole time. I imagine the conversations

you have here are pretty different from the ones you have about Europe

back home. It is different only in the sense that I do not have to

defend Europe. I am pro European and back home, a lot of the time it is

talking about British sovereignty and taking back power, whereas here

EU can kind of put that back -- put it aside. Sometimes the robbers from

further afield, like DOS from Australia -- Josh from Austria.

These people are good to work with and I feel in the future they will

be important contacts to have. This is as much about the networking as

the content of the course. That is right. Everybody has to eat their

meals together. You are stuck together and forced to go along. It

is quite a good way to forge some international links. Is very

students union? There is the student bar, lots of student parties and

sport. This is the colleges all of them. Every year, a big-name

addresses the student body. In 1988, it was Margaret Thatcher. We have

not successfully rolled back in Britain only to see them reimposed

at a European level with a European superstate exercising a new

dominance from Brussels. This place is often seen as a finishing school

for those that do want a European superstate, I do not think there is

a conspiracy. It is more that if you were not a

true you believe, why would you want to learn about it in such

mindnumbing detail? -- a true TU believe question and that is where

will finish. 2014 is a big year. In May, all of

the seats of the parliament will be up for election, which heralds new

changes. A new president of the Parliament, a new set of

commissioners, who also have a new president, and yet another new

president of the Council, who will chair the leaders summits. It can

all seem a bit comfort letter from the outside. Sometimes it sits

inside is for us look that way. Hopefully, after our journey, EU now

feel like a bit of an insider to. Is that you now feel -- hopefully you

now feel like an insider. We had a few power problems and

trees brought down and I am afraid we have more of that, as we had to

today. Christmas Eve, the stormy weather is set